“Gotham” Showrunner Bruno Heller Sheds Light on the Upcoming Series

Bruno Heller, who previously worked on HBO’s Rome and CBS’s The Mentalist, opened up to Entertainment Weekly earlier today about his next project, Fox’s upcoming series Gotham. Here are some highlights from Heller’s half of that talk:

On the human nature of the show (or, why we won’t see many capes and cowls in Gotham):

“Frankly, all those superhero stories I’ve seen, I always love them until they get into the costume. And then it’s, “Oh, okay, they’ve ascended, they’ve stopped becoming humans.” It’s their apotheosis. They go to heaven and they’re Superman. There have been so many great versions of it. This is a version of something else entirely.”

“The first thing was starting with Jim Gordon, who is the most human and real and normal person in the DC pantheon. What would the city of Gotham look like to a young rookie cop coming into this world? And that’s where we calibrated. This is a world that’s going to become that familiar world of Batman, but it’s not there yet. It’s an embryo.”

On how mapped out the first season’s story is:

“Entirely… I don’t understand people who do shows who don’t know what episode 3 is. I like to know what episode 6 and episode 20 is going to be.”

On what familiar faces we’ll see thrown into the mix:

“Obviously, the Penguin, Riddler, young Catwoman, Alfred. Possibly Harvey Dent. Poison Ivy. Um … and then there will be others, but I hate to — I’m so used to doing a police procedural, so I’m used to telling, “Next week he’s going to go there.” With this, it’s very much storytelling. So I would be remiss to tell you who will show up when. I will say we’re not going to skimp on giving people the characters they want and expect from Gotham. But when and how they’re going to show up is half the fun.”

“Exactly. Because we’re starting way before these villains even themselves knew they were villains. Some of them started out as good guys. So there will be a lot of that.”

On the Joker:

“He’s the crown jewel of the Batman villains. He will be brought in with great care and a lot of thought.”

“It’s certainly going to be more Heath Ledger than Cesar Romero. But like I say, all of these people are real people with feelings and emotions and history and parents. I just build from that.”

On tackling the visual aspect of Gotham City:

“Gotham will surpass the Batman movies. The movies are a very rigorous, kind of Germanic take on that world. They’re visually stunning, but not particularly visually pleasurable. I would say this is much more on the street level of Gotham. There’s more people, it’s a more colorful place, it’s a more vivid place, it’s more crowded. The inspiration for me and Danny was New York in the ’70s, because we both remember that as a seminal moment, coming to the city for the first time. This is very much that kind of Gotham — intensely visual and three-dimensional and layered and gritty and dirty and sexy and dangerous.”

On concerns about bring a prequel:

“It’s not that the celebrities are in the VIP lounge while you’re out front wondering where they are. In this case, the heroes aren’t “born” yet. They’re kids. I am cognizant of that as an issue.”

“As far as the history goes, people don’t know the ins and outs of it. Even in the well-known stories, there are secrets and backstories that people are not aware of. We also have the pre-iconic villains, like Fish Mooney, played by Jada Pinkett Smith, and those characters that people won’t have seen before… we will be telling as many interesting stories about people who are not goingto become costumed figures, and she gives a performance that will surprise and shock people, I think.”

On David Mazouz as Bruce Wayne:

“David Mazouz is, without doubt, the best actor ever to play the part of Bruce Wayne. Without doubt — including the people who played Batman. He is a genuine prodigy of an actor, as you will see on screen.”

“He’s off-the-charts talented. So I’m hoping to use him as much as his mum will allow us to, and in the kind of stories you’d imagine. It’s not going to be young Bruce Wayne going out and saving the day, because that’s not what kids do. It’s about the strange education of this young man. He has a good idea of where he’s going early on. But it’s about the growth of this young man.”

On ending the series with Bruce putting on the cowl:

“Yes, whether metaphorically or literally — something like that. But that’s six or seven years down the line. Hopefully.”

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